


On Beam Ends

by Yakkorat



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Bargaining - Victim Offers/Sacrifices Self to Protect Others, Captivity - Bound and Raped For Days, Intimacy - Forced Kissing, M/M, Manhandling, Object Insertion, Penetration - Painful Penetration, Position - Victim Bent Over Table/Desk, Position - Victim Face Down Ass Up, post-cotbp, sequels? what sequels?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:48:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24953302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yakkorat/pseuds/Yakkorat
Summary: Cut off from his retreating sailors aboard an enemy ship, James Norrington does what he must to safeguard the young shipmate captured with him.
Relationships: James Norrington/Original Character(s)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 43
Collections: Nonconathon 2020





	On Beam Ends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OddSocks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddSocks/gifts).



> Copious thanks to [DarthAstris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthAstris/pseuds/DarthAstris) for the last minute down-to-the-wire beta.
> 
> To my beautiful Kit and Steve, the great and extraordinary loves of my life, and my incredible partners in all things.

Jack Sparrow stepped into The Ram’s Horn and held his breath. It was the seventh tavern of the evening — Tortuga was nothing if not filled with ways to make a man forget his troubles — but the way the patrons gathered noisily toward the far wall, their attention fixed, made his pulse jump. Perhaps he and Gibbs had finally found what they’d been looking for.

A fleeting glance was enough to ascertain that Gibbs, too, suspected this might be the place. Jack signaled the barkeep for a pint and moved unhurriedly towards the commotion. It took a bit of doing before he could squeeze in far enough to see clearly, but the moment he could, it occurred to Jack to be grateful he had so much practice keeping every thought in his head from parading across his face.

They had flung half of his irons over a beam and refastened them, keeping him upright, and on his toes, though he was clearly favoring one foot over the other. A target hung from a rope around his neck, and as Jack watched, a knife thunked into the wood, just off from the bullseye. The crowd cheered, but Norrington didn’t even lift his head. He looked bloody awful.

“Mr. Gibbs,” Jack murmured, scarcely audible over the jeering laughter of the crowd. “If you would be so kind as to alert the crew.”

“Aye,” Gibbs answered, his eyes glued to the gruesome tableau ahead, and no wonder. Gibbs had known Norrington as a young man, a fresh faced leftenant. It was hard enough to reconcile the bruised, bleeding creature in tattered clothing with the proud commodore of Jack’s acquaintance, and he had known the man only a handful of days. 

One of the knives sank into Norrington’s thigh, and he screamed — a brief, bitten off thing — through the gag between his teeth. Jack’s fingernails dug into the meat of his palms. He forced his fists to unclench.

“Mr. Gibbs,” he said, low. Gibbs nodded, but he didn’t move, couldn’t seem to look away. “Joshamee!”

Gibbs startled. Met Jack’s eyes and nodded sharply. “We’ll come back for you when we’re ready.”

He didn’t wish Jack luck before he made his way back out of the tavern and into the streets. Jack appreciated the implicit faith in his abilities. Now, he just had to find an opportune moment.

_One Hour Earlier_

James stepped off the gangplank with difficulty. The cursed chains hobbled his stride, and his twisted ankle sent a sharp ache shooting to his hip with every step. James tightened his lips and used the pain to focus through the ever present weariness. If he were to find an escape for himself and the boy, this might be his only chance. It had been weeks since his abduction, perhaps as many as four, and this was the first time the _Cry Fortune_ had dropped anchor in all that time. He could hardly believe Captain Redding could be so brazen as to take him ashore, even in a pirate-controlled port.

Aboard ship, the days had begun to blend together, mornings on the deck in irons, assigned to shipboard tasks usually reserved for a cabin boy, with Redding’s crew never failing to deliver a kick or a slap or touches far too intimate for James’s liking as he trudged by. Perverse dinners at Redding’s table in which Redding attempted to assert himself as a gentleman, followed by endless hours in Redding’s bed, in which he proved himself to be nothing of the sort.

A boot landed in the center of his back, propelling him stumbling forward. The pain in his ankle whited out his vision for a moment, even as the kick to his midsection jarred his aching ribs, and he sucked in a ragged breath around the gag before he could compose himself. Someone — Baker, he thought — yanked hard on his leash, and the others snickered at the way it made him stagger.

He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. On taking one shallow breath at a time, swallowing back his exhaustion along the way. 

Even in no shape to lift his head, James could guess where he walked by the stench alone. Old rum and human waste, debauchery and despair.

Tortuga.

_Three Weeks Earlier_

“No!” James shouted, stopping short as the pirate’s blade cut into the boy’s neck. A few drops of blood welled at the surface and dripped downward, striping the boy’s tender throat. What was the boy’s name? Timothy? Thomas? He couldn’t be more than fourteen. He should have been working in the galley. How had he ended up boarding the _Fortune_?

“That’s it,” the pirate said, his face smug, “back up now. Wouldn’t want to have an accident.” 

James hesitated, his sword heavy in his hand. They had already been cut off from the retreating sailors by the fallen top deck rail. They wouldn’t make it back to the _Dauntless_. Assuming the _Fortune’s_ crew didn’t run them through immediately, their best hope was Gillette regrouping the men and coming after them.

The pirate tugged the boy more firmly against him. The boy drew a sharp breath, his wide eyes fixed on James. 

“All right,” he spat, lowering his sword.

***

The brig, unsurprisingly, was cold and damp. The boy — Thomas Murray, his name was, now that James had had a moment to think on it — sat shivering, his arms curled around his bent knees. It was the work of but a moment for James to remove his long coat and drape it over the boy’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” young Thomas said.

James nodded. “I’m sure Mr. Gillette will be returning for us presently. It wouldn’t do for us to fall ill.”

“Yes, sir.” He tugged the coat more firmly around himself, and the two of them settled into silence.

By James’s guess, the sun would be setting when they heard the first sounds of anyone approaching. A pair of unwashed miscreants stomped up to the brig, stopping just out of reach, keys in hand. One of them drew his pistol.

“Cap’n wants to see ye.”

James raised his brows, peered dramatically to one side and then to the other. “I don’t appear to be going anywhere.”

The man scowled. “Not ‘ere. ‘E’s waitin’ for ye,” he said, nodding toward the overhead.

“Well, then,” James said, and gave the boy a brief smile, “it appears as if I am going somewhere after all.”

Young Thomas hid an answering smile behind his hand and pulled James’s coat tighter around himself.

With a sigh, James clambered to his feet. Better to get this over with, he supposed. Before the man with the keys dared approach the door, the older of the two shifted the pistol’s aim from James to Thomas, and James’s lips tightened. “I assure you, that will not be necessary.”

“We ain’t takin’ no chances,” the first man sneered.

James waited for the door to open, and followed the two pirates out.

No matter their size, all ships shared inherent similarities in their layouts. It would be no trouble for James to find his way back to the brig on his own, should the opportunity present itself, though if they were to escape into a longboat, they would need to wait for dark, else they would be picked up again almost immediately. He still marked the way, and counted the men until they reached the captain’s door, and one of the pirates knocked.

“Enter.” 

The younger pirate opened the door, and James stepped inside.

The quarters were crowded but well appointed. It seems Redding favored sumptuous fabrics, red velvet cushions on his chairs, a blanket of the same fabric folded at the end of his bed. Politeness bid James refrain from shaking his head at the impracticality.

At the head of a small table sat Captain Redding, himself. He was a broader man than James, his skin weathered from the sun, his long hair dusted with grey. His tenure with the Royal Navy had come to an end well before James had enlisted; what little James knew of the man was due to his pirating reputation, which leaned unfailingly toward depravity and bloodshed. Strange how Jack Sparrow managed to sack entire ports without firing a single shot, yet Redding killed whenever the opportunity struck, even if there was nothing to be gained by it. James was unsure when Captain Sparrow had become the barometer by which he would judge pirates and good men, but it was a surprisingly effective measure.

“Captain Edward Redding, at your service.”

James scoffed. “Hardly.”

Redding inclined his head, conceding the point. “Do sit down, regardless.”

The captain’s table was laid well: meat, cheese, and bread with spiced oil. They must have provisioned recently. Redding rose to pour James wine, and then poured for himself, holding his glass goblet lazily as he reclined. James made no move to reach for his. He made no move to reach for anything.

“Come now, Commodore,” Redding said, frowning, “there’s no need to be rude. You’re a guest at the captain’s table.”

“And my crewman remains in your brig. Am I to believe dinner and wine have been offered to him as well?”

Redding laughed. “Stubborn, aren’t we, Commodore?”

“I prefer to consider it steadfast.”

“Suit yourself.” He sliced a piece of cheese from the wedge and chewed it calmly. “How do you find my ship? She’s no _Dauntless_ , of course.”

“That,” James said, “she is not.”

“The _Dauntless_ is a rare beauty. How many guns does she boast?”

“You know that.”

“I do,” Redding said. “I’m only trying to make polite conversation.” 

“Captain Redding, this is tedious. Either kill us or put us ashore. We are of no use to you.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. There is a young man in the brig that I could find very useful,” he said with a cold smile. “Perhaps I should invite him for dinner instead.”

James frowned. “Vulgar.” 

Redding only smiled again. “Perhaps.”

James thought again of the lad back in the brig, wide eyed and earnest and painfully young. He thought of Henry, his aunt’s youngest son, who had enlisted with nearly childish exuberance the moment he was of age and returned a year later with shadows in his eyes that had never faded. 

“If you must find someone _useful_ ,” he said, and allowed himself one moment to swallow violent distaste and bile, “then you will content yourself with me alone. The boy is not to be harmed.”

Redding‘s brows climbed. “Ordinarily, I would remind you that you are in no position to dictate terms, but I confess, I find myself intrigued. Are you an invert, Commodore?”

James’s lip curled. “It hardly matters, does it?” He disliked the idea that all men must be cut from the same cloth or branded lesser.

“No, I suppose not.” He paused a moment, as if he expected James to rescind his offer. “Are you quite certain? I am not a gentle man.”

“Imagine my surprise.”

Redding laughed. 

“I’ll have your word,” James said, and prayed the man’s oath was worth something. “The boy remains untouched.”

“Of course.”

It was all very polite and proper, as if they were negotiating a trade agreement instead of... instead of what they were negotiating for.

“Then we are agreed.”

Redding smiled. “Lovely. Now, as you don’t seem to have much of an appetite, we can get right down to satisfying mine. I am anxious to see what my forbearance has purchased. You are wearing entirely too many clothes.”

James pressed his lips together and nodded, pushing his chair away from the table and getting to his feet. Without a word, he lifted the tricorne from his head and set it aside, following it with his wig, hoping that his concise movements hid how badly his fingers trembled. The buttons were near to impossible, but finally he laid his waistcoat carefully over the back of the chair. Redding watched it all, seemingly amused.

“You’re not an invert. Have you been with a woman?”

“I am a gentleman,” James answered without looking at him.

Redding laughed. “Indeed.”

When he was down to his shirtsleeves, a condition achieved far too soon, Redding stood. He cupped James’s chin in his callused hand for a moment, a grotesque parody of a loving caress, and then slipped his fingers into the hair at James’s nape, drawing him forward. James thought again of the young man languishing in Redding’s brig and held himself fast, not backing away, even when the captain brought their mouths together.

“Open to me,” Redding whispered against his lips, and though James shuddered, he forced himself to obey.

Never in a thousand years would James have imagined a kiss could be something so vile. On the rare occasion he permitted himself to imagine such a thing after his failed engagement, he had envisioned a demure young woman who would blush prettily at his boldness, but Redding had nothing of grace about him. Nothing of kindness. The moment James’s lips parted Redding surged like the tide, possessing in a way James hadn’t known to fear.

Redding tasted of red wine and malice. James had thought they were of a height, but now, angled up to Redding’s ravaging mouth by Redding’s grip in his hair, the scant difference felt enormous. James was unaccustomed to feeling small.

Redding slid his free hand down James’s arm and guided James’s hand to his back, as if they were locked in a mutual embrace, while he continued to plunder James’s mouth. James grimaced but allowed it. 

Redding pulled back with a smile. “Excellent,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d have it in you.”

James frowned, and resisted the urge to wipe his mouth on his sleeve. “I am a man of my word.”

With a wave of his hand, Redding gestured at James. “The rest of it, then.”

James gave a tight nod and bent to divest himself of his shoes. The buttons of his breeches nearly defeated the tremble in his hands, but James was nothing if not determined, and the image of young Thomas with that pirate’s blade against his throat was motivation indeed. He pushed his breeches down before he could think too much, folding them before moving onto his stockings, and then pulling his shirt over his head. Bare chested, clad only in his drawers, he hesitated only the briefest moment before drawing the laces open and stepping out of them as well. He stood naked before Redding, twitching with the absurd desire to cover himself. He would not give Redding the satisfaction, but he was not fond of how vulnerable it left him.

“Am I to your liking, then?” he asked to fill the silence. 

“Immensely.”

With one arm, Redding swept most of the table clear, sending a hail of platters and utensils cascading noisily to the floor. He gripped the back of James’s neck and shoved downward, bending James over the coarse table and holding him there. James fought the urge to resist, curling his fingers around the table’s edge and holding on until his knuckles turned white.

He saw Redding pick up the bottle of oil, so he knew what it was when slick drizzled over the small of his back and lower. His stomach lurched in terrified anticipation as Redding moved behind him. There was an odd sound James couldn’t identify, and then something smooth and slender slid between his cheeks. It was too cold to be Redding’s member, and possessed a blunt edge that Redding dragged down to James’s most tender area. James shook with the effort of keeping still, and the item, whatever it was, pressed against his muscles, and slipped inside. 

It stopped, pushing against a second bulkhead of resistance. 

Surely it could go no further, but Redding did not slow. He shoved through, and whatever it was slid deep. James’s body clenched hard around the intrusion, a cramp seizing from James’s core, a sudden, paralyzing tightness that pressed the air from James’s lungs. Whatever Redding was using was hard. Unyielding. Enormous.

Finally, finally, the cramp eased, and while there was still pain, still an unwelcome, unnatural fullness, it wasn’t the blinding agony of the moment prior. 

Redding’s hand came down upon James’s buttock, the strike painfully jarring the implement inside him, the shock of being so abused even more mortifying. He held a curse behind his teeth and thought of young Thomas.

When Redding took hold of his shoulder and pulled, James followed his direction gingerly, rolling onto his back, keeping his legs bent to try to avoid moving the— good Christ, was that a candle? It felt so large, but it was less than the span of two fingers. James’s body spasmed around it, making the candle bob obscenely in Redding’s light hold. 

Redding laughed, stepping back between James’s lifted legs. James’s fingers found the table’s edge again, holding on as if he expected it to save him as he drowned. He forced himself to take a breath. Another. Slowly, steadily, Redding pushed the candle in deeper, and then pulled it out a few inches, the slide nauseatingly easy and slick with oil. It wasn’t pleasant, though perhaps it could have been if not for the circumstances and James’s mounting terror — some sailors enjoyed this sort of thing after all — but it wasn’t as painful as James had expected either. 

Though the candle wasn’t nearly the size Redding’s organ would be. 

Redding pried the fingers of one hand away from the table and guided it to the candle, curling James’s fingers around the shaft. 

“Hold that for me, would you?”

James stared at the ceiling while Redding stripped, the candle smooth, mendaciously innocuous between his fingers. He had no wish to see the turgid member with which Redding would be breaching him; this whole mess was horrifying enough without giving himself further reason to panic.

When Redding fitted himself between James’s legs again, his skin scalded everywhere Redding touched. Was another body always this heated by comparison? Redding laid his hands on the insides of James’s thighs, bowing them outward, and James’s breath hitched in his throat. 

He wasn’t ready. 

He wasn’t _ready_.

The candle slid out with a single tug, and Redding tossed it aside. James had the space of one breath to brace and then and Redding was forcing himself inside, and James could think of nothing beyond the need to keep from screaming. It was too much, too fast, like being cleaved in two. He clenched his teeth, and gripped the table’s edge until his fingers ached, and still, Redding had yet to fully seat himself. There was more, and more, good God, how could there be more of him? And the whole time Redding smiled down at him, pushing in at a glacial pace.

Finally Redding’s thighs pressed against James’s flesh and had James been a weaker man, he would have whimpered. After a moment, Redding pulled out an inch or two and then snapped back in. James gasped. 

Once Redding had started moving, he seemed to have no further use for restraint, pulling back almost entirely and then slamming his ramrod in: long, brutal stabs at a leisurely pace, with his thick fingers pressing bruises into James’s hips. James kept his teeth clenched, his eyes fixed on the overhead, and held on through each jolting thrust.

There was water damage in the wood above his head. A leak, then. Shameful. 

He had barely a moment to consider the incongruous nature of such a thought before Redding leaned forward, wrapping a hand around James’s throat, Redding’s leering gaze suddenly inescapable as he bore down and picked up speed. 

Desperation built in James’s chest. The thin, reedy breath he could draw through Redding’s hold was nowhere near enough. He could fight, could throw Redding off him, but if he did, he would undoubtedly condemn the boy to such depravities in his stead. With every instinct screaming, James gripped the table harder, his nails threatening to crack under the pressure. He would not let this man see him panic. 

Redding laughed and pulled back, unsheathing himself in one stroke, and James nearly choked with the unexpected pain of it. Finally, the pressure against his windpipe eased, and the desperate breath James gulped pained his throat and burned in his lungs. He trembled against the table, legs still aloft, tamping down on the futile hope that this meant Redding was finished with him. The man hadn’t spent yet.

“Let’s finish this somewhere more comfortable,” Redding smirked. “Up you get.”

Under Redding’s smug gaze James swallowed, his throat scorching, and tried to lower his legs. His midsection seized, quivering as he rolled himself onto his stomach and finally managed to get his feet onto the floor. Knees nearly buckling, dignity a virtue long since abandoned, James stumbled the few steps to Redding’s bed, and there he froze, unable to force himself to climb in.

Redding saved him the trouble. 

James barely caught his weight on his hands before Redding was behind him, mounting him like a beast. He tensed as Redding pierced him again. How could the second intrusion be more painful than the first? James twisted his fingers into the sheets. Wasting no time, Redding resumed his previous cadence, swift and vicious.

Redding shifted his weight, shoving downwards on James’s head until his trembling arms gave way, his face pressed into the thin mattress as at long last Redding’s rhythm began to falter. A few more stuttered jabs and Redding groaned, going still for a few seconds before dropping his weight entirely on James. James’s legs collapsed as well, Redding’s panting weight crushing him. When finally Redding softened, he pulled himself from James’s body, the pain barely noticeable in comparison. Everything hurt.

Carefully, James shifted his weight away. The bed wasn’t large enough for two full grown men, but he was desperate for even a few inches of separation. 

Redding reached down and drew the blanket up to their waists, pressing himself against James’s back.

Would this godforsaken devil never stop touching him? All James wanted was a moment to gather himself, but Redding continued playing his fingers up and down James’s arm, his breath hot on the back of James’s neck, denying James even the illusion of privacy to lick his wounds in peace.

After a while, Redding nuzzled behind James's ear, as if he were a doting lover instead of a vile man who had forced James to his bed. It made James’s stomach clench anew. 

“Is he dear to you?” Redding asked into James’s hair.

James frowned. “Who?”

Redding laughed, too close, too intimate. “The boy in the brig. Is he dear to you? He’s too old to be a son. A younger brother, perhaps?”

James blinked, his brows furrowing. “He’s no relation. I barely know him.”

“Then why?” 

“He is a sailor under my command.”

“And?”

“Ergo, he is my responsibility.”

Redding laughed again, and laid a kiss on the nape of James’s neck, so deceptively gentle it made James’s gorge rise. “Then I foresee a long and happy accord between us, Commodore.”

Under the heavy velvet blanket, James shivered.

_Now_

He woke slowly, no braying laugh or stomping boot forewarning imminent violence. The slow roll of the ocean rocked beneath him. His eyes snapped open, his heart speeding, but the duvet beneath him wasn’t the opulent velvet of Redding’s quarters. One look confirmed that it wasn't a ship of the crown, either. His thigh throbbed where the knife had imbedded itself, but there was pressure against it, a bandage. And for the first time in weeks, he appeared to be clean, a linen nightshirt soft against his skin beneath the blanket.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” came a voice from across the cabin. A voice which, despite the short length of their acquaintance, James knew he would never forget. If the way some of the tension bled from his muscles at the sound could be called relief, well, Sparrow need never know.

“Captain Sparrow,” James acknowledged.

“The one and only.” 

Seeing that James was awake, Sparrow kicked his feet down from the desk and sauntered over. He laid slender fingers against James’s forehead. “Oh, good. Fever’s still gone. I told Mr. Gibbs a bath would fix you right up.”

James’s brows raised. “You gave me a bath.” After his weeks with Redding, the thought of Sparrow peeling away his tattered breeches to bathe him was less distressing than he would have expected.

“Oi!” Sparrow exclaimed. “You should be thanking me. If not for my timely intervention, you might have drowned in a barrel in the cabin of a pirate ship. S’quite an ignoble end for a commodore of the King’s Navy, don’t you think?”

James closed his eyes and let his head drift back to the pillow, the corner of his mouth curling ever so slightly. “Thank you, Captain Sparrow.” His presence aboard the _Black Pearl_ suggested that Sparrow had engaged in some level of his usual, absurd heroics, and James trusted the man to comprehend that his gratitude encompassed more than a simple bath. 

Good god, he was tired.

“Been searchin’ for you near two weeks, mate,” Sparrow said carefully. “You’re lucky the Turners aren’t so particular in their friendships as you.”

James nodded, and then bolted upright. “Thomas!” he breathed, flinching at the myriad of twinges caused by his own sudden movement. “Redding was holding a member of my crew, a boy—”

“Safe as houses,” Sparrow assured him. “Bunking with the crew. Listening to tales of a certain young leftenant from Mr. Gibbs, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Was he—” James began and his voice failed him. “Did they—” If they had harmed the boy after all and everything James had done was for naught...

Sparrow laid a warm hand on his shoulder and shook his head. “He was underfed, to be sure, and had a bit of a fever from the damp, but mostly, he was worried for you. Said you saved his life.”

“Good. That’s good.” James swallowed. “Does he know?”

“Know what else you done to keep him safe on the _Fortune_?” 

James pressed his lips together and nodded. 

“No,” Sparrow said, and James let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He sank back into Sparrow’s bed like a marionette with cut strings. “I don’t know as you should tell the boy, mind you,” he said as he handed the blanket to James to adjust as he liked, “but you should consider talking to someone. Keeping a thing like that to oneself festers the soul.”

James shook his head, trying for a tired smile and not quite making it. He could hardly recount the story to Elizabeth over tea. “I should pen a letter. Let Gilette know not to start shooting when the _Pearl_ comes over the horizon.”

“Get your rest, mate,” Sparrow said quietly, patting his shoulder. “You’ve got time.”

_Seven Days Later_

The _Black Pearl_ sailed into the harbor at Port Royal, white flag flying, James and young Thomas standing visible on the deck to prevent any ambitious sailor from swaying to rash action. His ankle was wrapped, the rest of his injuries healing, and while he suspected the nightmares wouldn’t abate any time soon, Jack Sparrow had proved a remarkably affable companion, offering counsel and distraction in equal measure. With his steady encouragement over the past days, James felt not settled, exactly, after all he had suffered, but like he would one day feel settled again. For the moment, it was enough.

“You were quite right, Captain Sparrow,” he said, relinquishing the Pearl’s wheel back to her captain. “I am quite particular about those I hold in high esteem.” And he offered Jack Sparrow his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> “Safe as houses” wasn’t coined as a phrase until the 19th century, but neither was “Bob’s your uncle,” which is used in the CotBP film, and it seemed a Sparrownian thing to say, so it stayed. Likewise, “invert” as a term to refer to homosexuality and/or being transgender (which was not recognized as a separate concept at the time), is a late 19th century term. 
> 
> “On your beam ends” is nautical slang for being in a very bad situation. The beams are the horizontal timbers on a ship; if they are touching the water, and you are “on your beam ends,” it means that the ship is capsizing.


End file.
